In the world of digital technology, smartphones have been assisting people in all their daily work. Its need has increased significantly with continuous development. With this, the importance of a mobile-friendly app becomes more critical than ever. As the number of users accessing websites on mobile devices increases, it becomes essential for organisations to prioritise the automation of mobile app testing to achieve higher-quality web applications with faster delivery.
For automation of mobile app testing, developers need the ultimate Appium tutorial. Appium is considered one of the best open-source mobile app test automation frameworks. It makes Android automation and iOS automation more effective by providing scalability and flexibility.
This article will provide an Appium tutorial for automating mobile app testing. This will also explore the overview of Appium, what mobile app testing is, why use Appium for mobile app automation testing, prerequisites, understanding its architecture, Appium basics, challenges of Appium testing, along with some best practices.
Understanding mobile app testing
Mobile app testing refers to testing the activities for mobile applications on devices such as smartphones and tablets before their release, using well-defined testing methods to test functionality, usability, performance, security, etc.
This testing is done by using manual, automated, cloud-based and crowdsourced testing techniques on different devices and platforms to provide access to a wide range of mobile devices and platforms. Automated mobile app testing detects the errors immediately before users do and reduces the frustration and disappointment of the users when they encounter errors.
This testing is done to check the quality of service, mobility, usability, connectivity, security, and privacy of the mobile app and ensure they are working properly as desired and provide a high-quality user experience.
Overview of Appium
Appium is an open-source Automation testing tool that uses the WebDriver protocol to interact with mobile devices. It supports cross-platform testing, allowing testers to write tests in multiple programming languages that simulate user behaviour.
Integration with other popular testing frameworks, supporting real device testing, and eliminating the need to recompile apps are some of its notable features. It also helps to improve the test coverage, reduce maintenance costs, and enable testers to deliver high-quality mobile applications.
Why use Appium for mobile app automation testing
Cross-platform support- Appium support cross-platform and is used by testers for automation of mobile app testing. It can run a single test script on multiple platforms and ensure that the app works flawlessly across multiple systems. It allows testers to share test code across various platforms and helps to reduce effort, time and cost to maintain and update tests.
Open-source- Appium is an open-source framework that encourages testing on real devices, simulators and emulators. It’s free to use, and nature makes it a cost-effective solution for mobile app automation testing. It customises the open source code and allows users to tailor the framework according to their needs.
Support multiple languages- Appium supports multiple languages and makes the automation testing of mobile apps quite easy. To test the functionality of online applications, it enables testers to create automated tests in a variety of programming languages, such as C#, Python, Java, etc.
Large community: A large and active community is a significant advantage of Appium for automation of mobile app testing. It provides extensive support in the form of documents, tutorials, and forums. Community member helps users in learning by sharing their knowledge, experience and keep them up-to-date with the latest trends, and hence play an important role in improving mobile app testing
Real device, emulator, and simulator support- Appium supports real devices, emulators and simulators, which encourages the testing process and creates a flexible and comprehensive testing solution for mobile app automation testing.
Integration with testing frameworks- Appium has the ability to integrate with popular testing frameworks like TestNG, Junit, and Pytest. It leverages its feature for mobile app automation testing. By using this framework, users can write and run tests and create a flexible and powerful testing framework.
Automation of device features-For mobile app automation testing, testers use Appium because of its ability to automate device features. Automatic device features of Appium enable testers and users to automate camera interaction, simulate GPS locations, SMS interaction, and create a more comprehensive and realistic test for mobile apps.
Understanding Appium architecture
For automating mobile app testing, it is essential to understand the internal architecture of Appium. Essential elements Appium structure are:
Appium client- These libraries have specific bindings for languages that allow testers to create test scripts in their chosen programming language and translate those instructions into a format that the WebDriver comprehends.
Appium server- It is the key component of the Appium test automation framework and acts as a medium between test scripts and mobile devices. It receives commands from the client or test scripts and sends them to the appropriate mobile app automation framework for execution.
WebDriver protocol- WebDriver protocol is a standard protocol for automating web browsers and mobile devices. It is generally used to communicate with mobile devices.
Prerequisites for mobile app automation testing using Appium
Before installing Appium, developers should ensure they have the following:
- Node.js: Testers should install Node.js on the machine to run Appium.
- Java Development Kit (JDK): Java Development Kit is required to install for automating and testing the Android app.
- Xcode: Xcode must be installed on the machine to test iOS apps.
- Appium setup-Install Appium and set it in the testing environment.
- Install Android SDK: Download and install the Android SDK from the official website for Android testing.
- Install Appium client library: Install the Appium client library and write the test scripts in chosen programming languages.
- Appium server: Installation of the Appium server is required, as it runs to act as the bridge between the test script and mobile devices.
- Selected programming language: Appium supports multiple programming languages, which helps testers in automation of mobile app testing. Testers should select any language as per their comfort level and set up the necessary environment.
Appium basics
The features of Appium make automation of mobile app testing easier. The following are some basics that testers need to know about Appium:
Appium Inspector-It is one of the tools that provides a graphical user interface for communicating with the mobile device’s UI and helps testers in identifying buttons, text fields and labels like elements. It allows testers to inspect and identify the properties and attributes of UI elements on mobile devices, generate XPath and ID, etc.
Locators and strategies- Appium uses locators and strategies to identify UI elements on mobile devices. Some common locator strategies are:
- ID– ID is a unique identifier used to locate the UI elements.
- XPath- XPath expression is used to locate elements according to their attributes and hierarchy.
- Class name- Class name is also used to locate the elements.
Challenges of Appium testing
Slow test execution- One of the common challenges in Appium testing is slow test execution. It runs slowly and delays the entire testing process. It is generally caused by network latency, complex test scenarios and inefficient test code.
Elements not found- During Appium testing, testers often face challenges and are unable to find an element on the screen due to dynamic element IDs, complex UI, and slow page loading
Flaky tests- During Appium testing, testers generally faced Flaky test difficulties due to timing-related issues, environment issues, and test code issues. Intermittent failure of tests leads to inconsistent results.
Test data management- In Appium testing, test data management is crucial, but due to creating, maintaining, storing and managing relevant test data securely becomes a challenge for testers. Test data management is a complex task that can lead to the failure of tests and provide inconsistent results.
See also: Mobile Friendly Test: How to Optimize Your Site for Users on the Go
Best practices for efficient test automation using Appium
Choose the right testing tools
The selection of the appropriate testing tool is the most important strategy to run Appium tests for automating mobile apps. There are a variety of testing tools, methods, and cloud-based testing platforms like LambdaTest that enable testing native and mobile web applications using Appium, a widely used open-source automation framework.
LambdaTest is an AI testing tool for testing mobile apps. It is a modern, AI-driven testing platform designed to automate and streamline the mobile app testing process. It runs Appium tests to perform cross-platform and cross-browser compatibility testing on an online cloud of more than 3000 environments, and real mobile devices at scale. This enables handling variations in environments and ensures a consistent user experience across platforms.
The AI native self-healing features of LambdaTest provide self-healing automation, predictive execution, intelligent test selection, and advanced analytics to make testing processes more efficient and deliver fast and reliable applications.
It identifies UI changes that cause test script failures and automatically fixes the location elements in the script, and reduces the execution time. Furthermore, it provides parallel test execution across various browser platforms, operating systems, and devices. This capability allows testers to enhance speed in testing cycles.
Use a page object model
Page object model is the design pattern used to separate the test logic from the page-specific logic. It encapsulates the elements and actions of each screen in mobile app testing and makes the test more readable, maintainable, and usable.
Use waits and synchronisation
Waits and synchronisation, like implicit, explicit and fluent waits, run tests smoothly and reliably. It reduces the unnecessary steps and ensures that the tests wait for the expected app before performing its functions. Use of these waits and synchronisation leads testers to write more efficient Appium tests that will be able to handle variations in app performance and reduce test flakiness.
Keep tests simple and focused
Testers should keep their test logic simple and clear. They should focus on a specific piece of functionality to ensure that each test is targeted and effective. Complex test scenarios that are difficult to understand and maintain should be avoided.
Write the Independence test
Developers should write tests that are independent of the previous state of the test. An independent test makes the test more reliable and easier to maintain.
Login and reporting tests
Logging and reporting tests help testers in tracking test execution and identifying issues. It makes debugging and troubleshooting the tests easy.
Appium remains a top choice for mobile automation, and mastering it requires understanding environment setup. Running tests on an Android emulator on a Mac setup is a common requirement for cross-platform development.
This combination lets developers simulate Android devices directly on macOS, making it easier to build, test, and debug mobile apps without relying solely on physical devices.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that Appium is a game-changer in the modern, fast-paced world. They completely revolutionized the way testers automate mobile app testing. It provides features like automatic testing, more efficient defect and bug identification, improved testing efficiency, and high-quality application delivery, which make it an important tool to automate mobile app testing.
Implementation of Appium ensures that mobile apps meet the required standard of quality and functionality, and provide a seamless and user-friendly experience. By following the aforementioned tutorial and best practices, one can learn the basics of Appium and create an efficient, reliable, and scalable mobile app.
